M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Two Poems
by Doug Talley

"Lord, kneeling in a garden is a posture"

Lord, kneeling in a garden is a posture

next to kneeling prayer in the scraping depth

of its humility. To touch the moisture

of the earth, to feel that cloth of death

first hand-a dialogue of dust to dust-

whispers with soil the burden of the soul.

Kneel in a garden, and we kneel to our grave,

to spread our hearts into a film of rust,

to straw our bones upon a bed of coal,

unless, my Lord, the garden is a grave

of living water, a font of second birth,

which then transforms the soul into a god-

like what the yellow iris, washed of earth,

manages to arrange from rot and mud.

As Taught by Crickets

A thousand, thousand voices in the trees

echo the pattern of a simple prayer,

to make a pressing music from one's knees,

to cause a single note to brim the air.

They say the spiritual nature has a rhythm

felt most intently when alone in the dark,

where mortal bone and spirit feel their schism

made hard, impervious, like oak tree bark.

They say Thy voice, O Lord, is but a whisper

heard most clearly in one's deepest pain,

but a sympathy heard no clearer nor crisper

than one might hear a soft, a muddled rain,

yet we'll pray like sinners at a wailing wall

to ask Thy Holy Spirit to heal us all.

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